Being happy and finding life meaningful overlap, but there are important differences. A large survey revealed multiple differing predictors of happiness (controlling for meaning) and meaningfulness (controlling for happiness). Satisfying one’s needs and wants increased happiness but was largely irrelevant to meaningfulness. Happiness was largely present-oriented, whereas meaningfulness involves integrating past, present, and future. For example, thinking about future and past was associated with high meaningfulness but low happiness. Happiness was linked to being a taker rather than a giver, whereas meaningfulness went with being a giver rather than a taker. Higher levels of worry, stress, and anxiety were linked to higher meaningfulness but lower happiness. Concerns with personal identity and expressing the self contributed to meaning but not happiness.
Stanford researchers studying Positive Psychology examine the key differences between a happy life and a meaningful life (PDF) and offer some “brief composite sketches of the unhappy but meaningful life and of the happy but meaningless life.”
Complement with a simple practice to increase meaningfulness from Positive Psychology founding father Martin Seligman, then revisit Viktor Frankl’s timeless treatise on the human search for meaning.
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